Dear editors,

It was good news that Chancellor Syverud brought some sanity to the situation in Crouse-Hinds Hall by lifting the suspensions and stopping the lockdown of the building. But, by using the platform of the Senate to appear as the good guy (exclaiming “enough” and calling for de-escalation), the chancellor portrayed himself as a passive onlooker to a situation of his own making.

Are we to believe the chancellor himself had no role in the initial decision to suspend students for non-violent protest? Even if that was the case, what does that say about the integrity of decision-making processes in this administration?

Regardless of what was announced at the Senate, the damage has been done. I believe the university has in good faith been instituting changes to address the institutional racism and hate endemic on this campus. Yet, all that goodwill was tossed in the trash when the university decided to suspend students (mostly of color) for their acts of non-violent civil disobedience in the #NotAgainSU movement. In the eyes of the world, we will now be known as a university that punishes free speech and protest. The suspension letters students received even included threats of arrest and expulsion. This is unacceptable at an institution of higher education devoted to free inquiry and exchange of ideas.

Let’s be clear: This administration now appears more antagonistic to anti-racist activists than acts of racism and hate. This is how institutionalized racism operates. According to remarks the chancellor made in November, the university suspended four students for racist hate speech in the fall. On Wednesday, the chancellor implied there have been further suspensions for acts of racist hate on campus this semester. (How many? We don’t know.) But, what is pretty clear to me is that far more students have received suspensions for anti-racist activism than for perpetrating actual racism on this campus. On what planet can the administration justify this?

The administration justified these suspensions through an utterly cynical and nonsensical distinction between “protest” and “disruption.” They insist the students were suspended for the latter and not the former. As Professor Biko Gray eloquently argued at the Senate meeting, the entire history of protest — specifically Black protest — is a history of disruption. Disruption is how you force elites to pay attention. Disruption is how you win. By linking these suspensions to “disruption,” this administration demonstrated embarrassing ignorance on how protest actually works.

Yet, through their tactics of sanctions, intimidation and denial of the free flow of food, medicine and faculty into the building, the administration showed a deeply disturbing understanding of how power attempts to suppress and eradicate dissent.

This is now history we cannot erase. The chancellor and his senior administration have inflicted extraordinary and immeasurable damage on our students and on our community’s ideals as a whole. As Professor Eileen Schell said in her delivery of a petition signed by more than 500 faculty, staff, students and alumni, what we can do now is make sure this never happens again.

 

I would like to thank Gwendolyn D. Pough, Cecilia Green, Katie Feyh, Nancy Keefe Rhodes, and Jackie Orr for helpful comments and suggestions on a previous draft.

 

Matt Huber

Associate Professor of Geography

Syracuse University

Published on February 20, 2020 at 3:25 pm